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PROVERBS OF JAPAN 


cA little picture of the fapanese philosophy 
of life as mirrored in their proverbs 


By Dr. William Elliot Griffis 


BH 


JAPAN SOCIETY, Inc. 


25 WEST 43rv STREET 
New York (ity 





THE JAPANESE PHILOSOPHY 
OF LIFE 


As mirrored in their proverbs 


HEN on the soil of Cherry Blossom Land, in try- 
\ \ ing to adjust ancient ideas and modern methods, 
I found that often the native literary tools at hand were 
better than my own. That is, in teaching science, lec- 
turing in the classroom of the University, or discussing 
questions with everyday folks, I discovered that the 
more I could utilize and blend with mine, their own 
thoughts and beliefs, the greater success I seemed to 
win, when uniting Occidental and Oriental conceptions 
and culture. Whether it was a dissertation on chemistry 
or physics, or a proposition in psychology, or a conver- 
sation at home, or a chat by the wayside, to quote and 
apply one of their own proverbs usually clinched the 
nail or “Brought down the house.” 

To have attempted, at the beginning of intercourse, 
to circulate only my own ideas might have had a differ- 
ent result. Many a time the stolid faces of auditors 
showed neither response nor welcome. But when I 
proffered them coins minted in the treasury of their 
own national experience, then my auditors’ eyes 
gleamed. Their vision was clear.. They knew their 
value on the instant. Discerning both the truth and 
the fact, their faces were as when the world was lighted 


5 


after Ama-térasu came out of the cave. One may recall 
the verse in the Revised Version. ‘“They looked . . . 
and were radiant.” 

So having found that I could unlock the Japanese 
heart and mind by means of their own keys, I forthwith 
began the study of their proverbs, only to be surprised 
at their abundance and value. It was like saying 
“Sesame” to Ali Baba’s cave of riches. Nor is the allu- 
sion far-fetched. I am convinced that many of the 
tales in the “Arabian Nights’ Entertainments” are but 
glorified stories of sailors who voyaged from Bagdad to 
Korea and Japan. It is also an undisputed fact that, 
as in her wonderful art, so also in her voluminous liter- 
ature, Japan is, in large measure, heir to all the ages. 
Dai Nippon holds the residuum of the great streams of 
culture that flowed eastward from many lands and 
civilizations, even from Greece, Arabia, India and 
China. 

Yet while there were many rivers, they all emptied 
into one sea. The marine legends of Shinto are from 
Polynesia and of course earlier in time, but it was Bud- 
dhism, more than any other one stream, or perhaps than 
them all, that came as an ocean swell to bear on its 
bosom argosies of thought and symbol and to leave 
permanent deposits. Its fertilizing flood washed the 
shores of Japan, enriching the land and nation. Not 
from any vain or trivial thought, the Japanese call the 
three countries named above India, China and Korea 
“The Treasure Lands of the West.” The Occident, of 
an earlier day for Japan, was not Europe but Conti- 
nental Asia. 


6 


Hence when we analyze and assort the treasures of 
wit and wisdom in the national storehouse, we find be- 
side many things precious wrought from the native ore, 
caskets of imported jewels from other lands. Even in 
the matrix of popular sayings, one catches the gleam 
of a gem that is foreign, while yet illuminating the 
truth that human nature on this planet has no frontiers. 
Hence Hindu, Chinese, Korean and Ainu proverbs 
abound. 

Yet in many striking, even amusing instances, there 
is usually a Japanese tail to the comet’s nucleus. The 
idea may have wandered far, but in the popular proverb 
we see that these alien bodies of thought, before they 
win welcome in the Island Empire, must wear a ki- 
mono. Indeed, to those who affirm, sometimes rather 
vehemently, that the Japanese only imitate and copy, 
but do not originate, we answer, after a Cathay cycle 
(sixty years and over) of acquaintance with these 
people and their mind, that such opinionated judges 
do not know the Japanese. At any rate, even the for- 
eign proverbs, in their forms to date, usually wear the 
image and superscription of Yamato, as our pages will 
show. In other words, seen in the perspective of the 
centuries—even though the composite Japanese nation 
is young, no older, as I believe, than the conglomerate 
English, as I have shown in my book “The Japanese 
Nation in Evolution’—they are a creative as well as 
imitative people. 

In fact, when we know, comprehensively and criti- 
cally, the true history of ‘our’ own civilization and the 
components of it, and that of the Japanese also, we 


ip 


shall have less Yankee conceit, less American brag, and 
more genuine admiration of what Japan has achieved. 
In fact, even their proverbs, when classified and under- 
stood in their setting, show a well-ordered scheme and 
a philosophy of life that bear favorable comparison to 
those of older and greater nations and, on the whole, 
superior to that of most upstarts of modern days that 
are too much puffed up because of material resources. 
Indeed few peoples are in more subtle and manifest 
harmony with their environment, while none have ex- 
celled the Japanese in successfully meeting the collision 
of a new world of ideas and the clash of an alien civi- 
lization. The once “Hermit in the market place” has 
become the noble companion of the sovereigns and na- 
tions of the earth that meet in mutually congenial 
brotherhood. 

But lest, in the literary architecture of this little 
book, we imitate too closely the Oriental custom of 
making the gate almost as imposing as the main struc- 
ture and the porch too large in proportion to the dwell- 
ing, let us enter at once into the interior of things. We 
shall pay more attention to the old than to the new, for 
at the banquet in wisdom’s hall—‘‘The old is better.” 
So, of things pre-ancient as well as of today, we shall 
write first, concerning heredity, genealogy, marriage, 
parent and child, and whatever relates to the founda- 
tion of all society and government—the family. On 
these subjects Japanese wit and wisdom are of the first 
order of proved value. 

For, antecedent to the future and to the perpetuity 
of the race is the sexual instinct. This, in orderly evo- 


8 


lution, becomes marriage and creates institutions and, 
when sublimated, becomes noblest friendship. Hence 
in the Land of the Sun Goddess very frequent is the 
sight not only of “Love birds” in feather, which live 
loyally in pairs, but also the human couples, man and 
woman, who, by early mating and long dwelling in 
mutual affection, come, in time, to look like each other 
in their answering faces, even as in ways and actions 
they are much alike. Although in the old communal 
Oriental civilization which, in Japan at least, seems to 
be slowly giving way before Occidental individualism, 
the ordinary word for romantic love (zro) is apt to 
mean something outside the marriage relation—let it 
not be forgotten that in Asia the family is the integer, 
and the individual the cipher. Yet there is ever an in- 
creasing number of instances in which mutual personal 
affection, as well as family considerations and the tra- 
ditional conventions, rules. Then, marriage means 
mating without too great subordination of the woman. 

Nevertheless, as human nature, antedating all insti- 
tutions, is, in every land and age, far down beneath the 
framework of society, Japanese proverbs tell a variety 
of tales, some of them amusing enough, while running 
the gamut from the sublime to the ridiculous. Prob- 
ably the stages preliminary to wedlock afford the most 
amusement. Moreover, in our own country, as well as 
in Europe, the cultured Japanese has his own fun in 
poking his country’s proverbs—keen shafts of wit—at 
our infelicities. 

For example, once, late at night, when riding in a 
Broadway (horse) car, with a son of Japan’s prime 


9 


minister, then a student at New Brunswick, N. J., we 
noticed an amatory exhibition in public of two youthful 
inhabitants of ‘““The land of the free and the home of 
the brave.” Both sexes were represented in “’Arry and 
’Arriet.”” They attracted the attention not only of the 
young Japanese, but of more of the passengers—so 
sugary was their joy ride to bliss. This lad, of the finest 
culture of Kyoto, after a glance at the amatory couple, 
whispered in my ear ‘“‘Cats’ courting is noisy!” 

Nevertheless this proverb is applied also to the flat- 
terer and to the politician who, with honeyed word and 
winsome gesture, purrs softly before obtaining office or 
power, but may scratch afterwards. It refers, in gen- 
eral, to that over-officiousness and obsequiousness which 
cloaks an ulterior and even base motive. In such a case, 
“Excess of politeness becomes impoliteness.”’ Like the 
Greeks—between whom and the Japanese there is in 
their mentality a subtle likeness—the inhabitants of 
the Land of Dainty Decoration have a horror of the 
too-much. Moderation in all things is the law of life, 
even as we may in this booklet tell, even to repetition. 
The first virtue of a samurai was self-control. 

Never, because of the force of gravitation in human 
nature—varying in the couples most interested—does 
the course of true love run either smooth or straight. 
The time may come when man and maid “‘Love each 
other enough to bicker and fall out.’’ In such a case, 
“Even a dog will not interfere in a love quarrel’’—that 
is, when ironic compliments are bandied, sarcasm and 
upbraiding and tart or bitter-sweet prattle fly back and 
forth. Though ‘From love arises doubt (jealousy) and 


Io 


from doubt estrangement,” yet in optimism it is pro- 
verbially declared, when the episode is followed not by 
separation, but by reconciliation, or making up, “Deep 
as are the quarrels, deep becomes the love.”” A thunder 
storm clears the air. 

Happy indeed is the union of man and wife in that 
mutual mating and long faithfulness which ‘‘Age can- 
not wither.” Despite the many marital infelicities, 
separations and the statistics of divorce, it is often that 
one can say of a married couple, even in the words of 
David’s tribute to Saul and Jonathan, “Lovely and 
pleasant in their lives and in death not divided.” Thus 
freely we may translate Karo do-ketsu no chigird, or, 
literally, ““Growing old together and buried in the same 
spot.” A marital oath sometimes taken binds the pair 
“To be faithful even to the grave.” 

Yet for such felicitous combination, there must be 
equally high levels of character. Sinister and cynical, 
though logical, is the explanation of not a few unhappy 
marriages—“‘A patched lid to a mended pot.’ Both 
man and wife being defective in character and tempera- 
ment, the elements that produce bliss in marital unity 
are lacking. 

Almost as a matter of course, that is, of logic in a 
communal civilization such as Old Japan knew, the 
family is everything and the individual nothing. The 
female was deemed an impersonal adjunct, rather 
than a personal unit. This is decreasingly so in New 
Nippon, in which both personality and individuality 
are emerging, probably even at as rapid a rate as 
considerations of social safety should permit. 


Il 


Hence the many proverbs—amirrors of the past that 
reflect the relatively low estate of woman! Even yet, 
however, the normal Japanese finds it hard to under- 
stand or appreciate that Occidental reverence for 
woman which in America takes on some surprising and 
not always healthy forms. In fact, from most of the 
films produced in the United States at the moving pic- 
ture shows, the kissing and usually the bedchamber 
scenes are cut out when exhibited in Japan. 

Some of the old Japanese proverbs are as savage as 
those of the Greek pécrod (the picric, or intensely acid 
fellows) who could write such mordant stuff as this: 
“There are two happy days in a man’s life with a 
woman—the day he marries her and the day he buries 
Her i 7 

Let us read what the Japanese pen, when dipped in 
picric acid, can write: “Trust a (young) woman, only 
so long as her mother’s eyes are upon her’; “After 
death, a woman can plan no deceit’’—which shows that 
in the Eternal Land of Japanese poetry dead women, 
as well as men, “Tell no tales.”’ Nevertheless ghost 
stories and tales of the posthumous revenge or maley- 
olence of women, once cremated or interred, are com- 
mon. “Death alone makes woman contented” is an- 
other picric utterance concerning “The restless sex.”’ 

Although I have prowled around in many a hakasho 
(burying-ground), I never read on a Japanese tomb- 
stone what I heard a despairing son once say to his 
American parent, “Mother, it should be carved on your 
monument, ‘She wanted something else.’” Yet no 
doubt this complaint has been echoed in lands beyond 


12. 


the Pacific. Nor, in fairness, need we draw the bar 
sinister across this epitaph which our own Dr. S. Wells 
Williams, in Perry days, read in a temple yard at Shi- 
moda, ‘“The grave of the believing woman Yu-ning. 
Happy was the day of her departure.”” Let us hope it 
was a happy day for her and not for her friends. 

“The fatal gift of beauty” is coveted both by the 
Japanese maiden in the red petticoat and by the wife 
in white (symbolical of her having died to her own 
family), and this gift of Heaven is ardently desired 
by the swain or husband. Yet beauty only skin deep, 
is often only a flush, an evanescence. The woman 
bereaved of the charms that once allured declares, in 
thinking of a fickle man, that “Love leaves with the 
red petticoat.”” Although one sees many a Japanese 
Madonna in both the lovely mother and her charming 
daughters (I have the portraits of several families or 
“Houses” in memory’s halls as well as in my study), 
yet not to every maid in Nippon is given this gift of 
the gods. Hence the proverb: “An ugly women shuns 
the mirror.” 

Nor is beauty always the handmaid to wifely virtue 
or to virginal purity: ‘“‘Beware of a beautiful woman; 
she is like red pepper’—as our possibly euphemistic 
rendering has it. At any rate, ‘“There is a thorn to the 
rose.” 

Two great enemies of a happy home or marital union 
are the wrong kind of woman attracting and serving 
the man, and the male flirt, who endangers the purity 
of the social relations of the wife. 

Pre-ancient is woman the tempter, even to dishonor, 


3 


that is, the courtesan. In evolution the géz-sha, however, 
as her name is expressed in the Chinese characters, is a 
comparatively modern product of Japanese civiliza- 
tion. The gé-sha did not exist in the primitive life of 
Japan, but is the flower, or weed, of culture and the 
increasing luxury of civilization. She is unheard of in 
the ancient or classic literature (fifth to twelfth cen- 
tury), but arose after the-heroic age of wars had passed 
and after the eastern capital at Kamakura had been 
founded by Yoritomo in 1192. There were, of course, 
concubines and extra wives with beauty and charm, in 
the earlier days of Kyoto, and still earlier at Nara; but 
the accomplished (géi) woman—the gé7-sha, able to 
serve tea and viands with grace, to play upon musical 
instruments, to dance, to sing, to quote poetry and 
literature—came in among the dalliances of peace. In 
modern days, with the increasing education of woman, 
the géz-sha is an anachronism. Yet though a menace to 
the home, and ever a moral peril to the would-be pure 
youth or man, she is not to be confounded with the 
woman of lower rank socially and morally. Indeed, in 
this evolution of the two classes, the proverbs them- 
selves almost tell the story in chronology; for while 
few of sinister significance are applied to the géé-sha, 
many of them set a brand upon the ‘“Hell-woman”’ 
(jigoku-onna)—the creature who is at once the off- 
spring and nourisher of man’s lust. ‘““When you find a 
truthful courtesan and a four-cornered egg, the new 
moon will appear a day before its time.”’ “No truth in 
a prostitute!’ “When the dusk falls upon the home, it 
is because, as the light is more intense, the shadow is 


14 


deeper’’; or “If the Yoshiware (literally Flower-Mea- 
dow ) becomes bright, there is a gloom in the home.” 

In our American social problem and in the funny 
man’s gibes and caricatures, it is the husband’s mother- 
in-law that furnishes the raw material for the joke- 
smith. It is the woman’s mother that may prove the 
thorn, or the terror, or make three in a company a crowd. 
In lands where the family is the only matrimonial insti- 
tution, and the bride arrays herself in funeral white to 
show that she is dead to her relatives, to be reborn in her 
husband’s house, the case is different. It is the hus- 
band’s mother, the wife’s mother-in-law, who holds the 
reins of authority and dictates the policy which makes 
Heaven or Hades for the new wife. 

Nevertheless in time, the position of the once “‘Care- 
less and happy” bride may become the “Hairless and 
cappy’ woman. Certain it is that in the four different 
styles of wearing the hair in Old Japan, the female 
part of the race could show (1) by the chignon and 
bangs, (2) by the half-moon-shaped dressing of the 
top hair, (3) by the twisting of the tresses crosswise 
around a bar, or (4) by a smooth cranium guiltless of 
a single hair, whether the individual were maiden, wife, 
widow who might try a second experiment, or the 
widow who advertised by her shining skull that no 
gentleman need apply. Perhaps too often, also the 
daughter-in-law became in turn and with perverse em- 
phasis, the mother-in-law to terrorize a newly wedded 
son’s wife. In reverse, however, the happy relations of 
the senior and junior ladies of the household yielded, 
in many if not in most cases, at least average happiness. 


3, 


Of course, the ‘Penny Dreadful” novels and the Shil- 
ling shockers” of fiction painted in lurid colors the 
long-nosed vengeance wreaked by the former daughter- 
in-law upon the new bride in her house. 

After all is said on this subject from our point of 
view, our conviction is that even in Asia, despite the 
traditional low estate of women, the average wife is 
boss inside the house. In conclave, on most domestic 
questions, she gives the final vote. Does not the man, 
who gets hungry three times a day, depend upon his 
helpmate for palatable food? Is he foolish enough to 
abuse the cook? And does not the wife know that ‘““The 
turnpike road to a man’s heart is through his stomach?” 
Moreover, is not a woman’s tongue her weapon of 
offense and defense, as well as of wiles and allurement? 
Almost pathetic is the male’s view of the dynamic of 
scolding possessed by his female partner—‘“‘The tongue, 
but three inches long, can kill a man six feet high.” 
She may cackle, but not crow, for power and excess of 
wifehood, either in affection or scolding, may be too 
much of a good thing (tadashiku suguru)—‘‘The crow- 
ing of a hen isa sign of ruin in a family.” 

In social relations pertaining to marriage, the male 
visitor's stay at the home must be brief and circum- 
spect. “Don’t wipe your shoes in a melon patch’’ is of 
Chinese origin; so also is this, ‘“Don’t adjust your cap 
under a pear tree”’; but in Japan both mean “Better not 
call when the husband is not at home” and ‘‘Ever ab- 
stain from all appearance of evil.” 

In reverse, ““A virtuous woman cannot have two hus- 
bands,” while the extreme of wifely loyalty (in the 


16 


old view )—even though foot-binding was never a cus- 
tom in Japan, as in China—‘‘A virtuous woman seldom 
crosses her husband’s threshold.” 

While we acknowledge that in the realm of ethics— 
the consummate white flower that grew within the 
limited garden of feudalism was loyalty, yet religion 
being the deepest thing in man, there is, naturally on 
this theme a multitude of proverbs in the Land of the 
Gods. Some, in their moral loftiness, approaching the 
Christian high levels, show this. In China, the ethical 
system edited by Confucius, when Chinese feudalism 
was long past, fruited in filial piety; but in much 
younger Japan, where the feudal system was later in 
developing, loyalty was the super-man’s ethical achieve- 
ment, which has made fascinating so much of Japanese 
history. 

And this contrasting situation is according to the 
genius of either people! China is ethical, Japan es- 
thetical. To the solid foundation of ethical principles, 
Japanese added the touch of beauty. In both coun- 
tries, one notes that between an upper class, rather in- 
sensitive to things invisible and in which intellectual 
agnosticism and only a polite conformity to ritual and 
customs is the rule—as against the lower strata of 
superstition and unthinking piousness—there is.a fairly 
large element of devoutness and an eager search after 
things unseen and eternal. Hence we find, both in the 
classic wisdom and in the current proverbs, much the 
same elements in both countries. Here are a few which 
we set down with no attempt at systematic arrange- 
ment; for, in ancient thought, the modern classifica- 


47 


tions of the theological encyclopedias and the divisions 
of metaphysics, psychology, etc., were unknown; even 
as the differentiations of civil, criminal, commercial, or 
ecclesiastical law were not conceived of. The funda- 
mentalism of Confucius expressed itself thus: ‘Honor 
the gods, but keep them far from you,” that is, be 
neither irreverent nor too familiar, for ‘‘Excess of 
piety is impiety.” ‘““The gods have their throne on the 
brow of a just man.” 

“Men’s hearts are like their faces.” 

“There is variety and wrinkles are the records of 
experience.” “The world is what the heart makes it.” 
‘A noble-hearted man never talks (or boasts) of a 
doubtful good.” Often our best intentions work out 
disappointing results, so we had better wait and see. 
‘““The narrow-minded man surveys the heavens through 
a needle’s eye.” 

The dogma of original, or birth, sin finds no place 
in Oriental theology (the word Shinté means theos- 
logos, theology), or ethics. ‘“The white lotos springs 
out of the black mire,” or high life of exalted character 
may develop from lowly origin. 

There is an implied protest in the following—‘‘No 
better way than deception (or discussion )’’—to stop a 
child’s cry with a promise, or sweetmeats, or when the 
fortune teller switches off the seeker’s attention to 
another subject. 

A thousand illustrations from Japanese history might 
show how men of noble mind have bowed to fate in- 
scrutable. It is the impersonal ‘“‘Heaven,” not the 
personal God or Heavenly Father, that is in the mind 


18 


that coined these proverbs: ‘Heaven’s ordination 
baffles the human.” ‘“The universe is great, but man’s 
power is puny.” “In vain mortals rail against fate; 
resistance works disaster.” “If you spit at Heaven, you 
spit in your own face.” Are the heavens as brass to 
your prayers?—‘‘The gods are deaf.” But “Heaven 
sees through everything” for “Heaven has eyes,” and, 
to come down to earth, ‘“‘Walls have ears.” 

Among a maritime people, whose sustenance is 
largely in the sea, the figure of the fish, helpless within 
meshes, “The net of destiny” is a ruling idea. ‘‘None 
can escape (from) Heaven’s net.” 

In many minds, among the ancients, “Nature’’—not 
as science analyzes and conceives it—and ‘‘Heaven”’ 
were much the same. ‘‘God,” that is ‘“[The Power, not 
ourselves, that works for righteousness” was conceived 
as a bundle of laws and forces. Hence, moral quality 
in impersonal nature! Rain falls on the evil and the 
good. Prosperity and calamity may come to both— 
“Plants and trees speak not of man’s good or evil.” 

Yet there was many a Japanese Job—or Stoic—who 
showed greatness in the hour of death, when fortune 
had gone against him and the enigma of life even to 
the finest man seemed insoluble. He might yet trust 
in “Heaven” and righteousness, even though he die 
and the unjust triumph, but would say, “I will main- 
tain my own ways’; yes, argue even in the face of 
Heaven and go down to death justified. Instance 
Kusunoki Masashigé, mirror of loyalty, the Regent Ii, 
and the radical Yoshida Shoin, of whom we may speak 
further on. 


a 


“Where there is no law, there is no transgression”’ 
is both fact and philosophy, but with the masses, who 
rely on symbols and the visible idol or talisman, rather 
than upon reality, which must be sought with mental 
strain, the idea takes a more concrete form. “An un- 
known god never punishes,” or “A man is not to be 
afflicted by a god he never knew,” whether one of the 
eight million Kami of Shinto, or of the terrible array 
of the unnumbered idols (Hotoké) in Buddhism. 

The power of mind is fully recognized. They who 
know Japan’s ‘‘Mind in the making” and her intellec- 
tual history and especially how the Oyo-méi philosophy 
had more to do with the creation of modern Japan 
than Commodore Perry, Townsend Harris, or even 
foreign commerce, will recognize the truth in the fol- 
lowing: “Man himself makes his heaven and earth.” 
‘The universe is as the mind conceives it.” The reality, 
not the symbol, is the cry of the yearning spirit, and 
“Making an idol does not give it a soul.” 

In practical ethics a great deep spirit of discernment 
comes at times upon the normal Japanese, as for ex- 
ample, when he puts difference between the name and 
profession of a Christian and the reality. He sees that 
“Better is the tonsure of the heart, than of the head.” 
Yet both hypocrisy with a trumpet and true character 
in modesty are discerned and discriminated. “Even 
two leaves of sen-dan (an aromatic plant) give forth 
perfume” and “If falsehood takes the road, truth 
hides.” 

One must be lenient and charitable when circum- 
stances permit or encourage. One famous picture and 


20 


poem of classic days shows a court noble, who having 
brushed his costly brocade robe against a wet heath- 
flower soliloquized thus: ‘On account of the perfume, 
I do not brush off the dew,”’ and ‘‘Good medicine may 
be bitter in the mouth” yet work a renovation. “Spare 
the skin of a dead tiger’—be charitable to a man’s 
faults. You may not know all the circumstances, or he 
may not have had your strength of character. If you 
are a pessimist and think life is but a burden or an 
empty dream, and you “Hate any one, and let him 
live’’—that will be revenge enough. 

Nevertheless in business, etiquette and the ethical 
conduct of life, one must be cautious and not be fool- 
ishly trustful or credulous. So ‘Don’t trust meat to a 
dog,” “A pigeon to carry grain,” or “Money to a 
thievish messenger,” for “One man sent to bring back 
another may be tempted.” In all dealings, “One 
must be careful to be careful’ and ‘‘To one’s own ex- 
perience, hoist the sail.” 

Yet it is not wise to cross either the bridge or river 
which foreboding builds or fear sees flowing, till one 
comes to it, for ‘It is useless to repent beforehand,” 
and “Even misfortune,” so an optimist declares, “(May 
be the bridge to happiness.” ‘‘What scalds the throat 
may be forgotten in the stomach.” In dark misfortune 
and even in calamity there may be a silver lining to 
the cloud, for “Even lepers are envious of those with 
sores.” No matter how hard things are, they might be 
worse, and ““The bee might sting a crying face.” “Even 
diminution of pain is a pleasure.” 

Yet a man may be too lenient with his own faults; 


Pha 


yes, even shake hands with himself and become an 
habitual maker of excuses. His ‘‘Coming to himself” 
is seen in self-confession—“Casting away self-love, I 
have no lover.”’ Such a case of bloated conceit and 
self-righteousness was not infrequent. As to a big man 
(e. g., a wrestler) ‘Wisdom circulates with difficulty.” 
Of the word of him who says “I go,” but goes not, it 
is said ‘“That’s only a dyer’s promise,” or a “Tailor’s 
day after tomorrow.” 

In Japanese pictorial art and in fairy tales, the in- 
digenous Hercules with an elephantine body has a 
small head—often no bigger than a cocoa-nut. Into and 
through such a brain box, new ideas percolate slowly. 
In the case of the smug fellow, the paradox becomes 
plain fact. “One must have seven faults, or if not, 
there must be eight.” Lincoln told of a fellow pas- 
senger on the stage coach, whose philosophy on this 
subject was thus summed up: “‘A man that has no faults 
has pesky few virtues.” 

So, we must bear with the infirmities of our friends, 
else no praise to us, for “Possible patience any one 
can have, but impossible patience is true patience.” 
This was a saying of Iyéyasu, who after victory, 
“Tightened the cords of his helmet,”’ in vigilance, but 
who believed in the healing power of time and the 
practical virtues of conciliation. Invincible optimism, 
that is able to endure severe tests, is sure to win, for 
‘““A cheerful spirit pierces even stone.” It was music 
that “Raised the walls of Troy,” and “If the heart be 
full, the night (of darkness) will be short.’ Better the 
weapons of patience than of retribution, for evil often 


46 2. 


runs out by its own momentum, and ‘‘Vaulting ambi- 
tion overleaps itself.” ‘The summer insect falls into 
Ee fire. 

Revenge is a boomerang. ‘To hate a man is like 
grinding a sword to cut yourself” and “If you vow 
vengeance, then dig two graves’ —you will be sure to 
get into one of them. 

The old plan, in feudal Japan, of dividing the popu- 
lation into groups of five was useful not only for gov- 
ernmental purposes, enabling the magistrates to fix re- 
sponsibility, but it worked out a cooperative spirit and 
one of mutual helpfulness and responsibility. Such a 
spirit and form of society make many of our Occidental 
forms of charity unnecessary in Japan. Our excessive 
individualism has the defects of its virtues. 

So the proverb declares that “To benefit others is to 
benefit ourselves.”” There, we see that unity and co- 
operation work out wonderful results and our ultra- 
individualism can learn many stimulating lessons. 

In our century Japanese medical science and public 
hygiene are abreast of the best among the nations. Yet it 
was far from being thus in Old Japan. We cannot find 
that the Japanese philosophy of strictly personal health- 
preservation, as reflected in proverbs, is notably pro- 
found or exalted. Yet many are the flings of wit at the 
doctors and numerous are the rays from the lamp of 
experience cast upon the various ills of life and the in- 
conveniences of unusual situations, the peculiarities of 
individuals and the limitations of humanity. The 
saying “The hand cannot reach to the sore spot,” re- 
veals shortage of power, while ‘Scratching the foot with 


a0) 


the shoe on,”’ whether clog or sandal, pictures the same 
impotence. Higher up on the body what is soft may 
protect that which is hard—‘‘When the lips are broken 
away, the teeth are cold.” This may refer to personal 
comfort or in diplomacy or in war’s strategy, to 
menaced or violated frontiers. Three centuries ago, as 
well as in our time, Korea, because of weakness, was 
spoken of as “The lips of the Japanese empire’’—not 
to be broken away when Mongols, Tartars, Chinese or 
Russians threatened to chill to death the body of 
Japan. The corollary was that so long as Japan’s lips 
were intact, the empire need not show its teeth, yet 
must protect the covering. “Slice your thigh and add 
to your cheek”’ means useless sacrifice and woeful waste 
leading to failure. Similar is the sneer “Add one cubit 
to your stature’ —if you can. 

Illustrating the impossible, there is a whole sheaf of 
proverbs, of which two may be cited as specimens— 
“To dip up the ocean with the hand” or “To scatter a 
fog with a fan,”’ and one must use the right means, for 
“Though a magnet attracts iron, it cannot attract a 
stone.” 

Before calling in the doctor to help neutralize the 
effects of your own folly or ignorance, or innocent in- 
fection or hereditary tendency, it is well to remember 
that “Disease enters by the mouth” and “The mouth 
is the door of disease.”’ “‘Pleasure’’—in loading in sur- 
plus nourishment as well as excess in other indulgences 
—“‘is the seed of trouble.’ In Japan, as in other lands. 
men “Dig their graves with their teeth.” Yet if one 
does fall ill, “Good nursing is better than physic.” 


24 


Nevertheless the specialist is valued aright “A jéu-she 
(Confucius, teacher of ethics) for bad morals and a 
physician for excess in eating.” ‘Girth control” is as 
necessary under the cherry blossoms as under the 
hickory or laurel. The pessimist is quite sure that 
“Everyone is sick or proud,” while he notices that ‘“The 
sage sickens and the beautiful woman is unhappy.” It 
was said, before the days of tablets, medicaments, 
remedies in capsules, or the sugar coating of pills, that 
“Good medicine is bitter to the mouth”; but, despite 
all advance in science, or superior skill, ““There is no 
medicine for a fool” and none “For a wounded spirit.” 
The cynic notices that ‘““The fortune-teller cannot tell 
his own fortune.” In three words he informs us that 
“The doctor takes not care of his own health,” nor 
loves to take his own medicine. 

Almost every American reader will parallel, in his 
own mind and from his own reading—even in the pages 
of Holy Writ—similar saws, for “One touch of nature 
makes the whole world kin.”’ 

Longevity is the goal of personal hygiene and the 
task of the physician is to lengthen life. Yet if there 
is one thought in Japanese literature that seems, by its 
repetition and monotony, to overburden all others, it 
is the brevity of human life and the evanescence of all 
things. Hence the mournful strains heard and the vein 
of sadness discerned in their poetry and proverbs. 

Here are a few that mirror this thought. “Life is 
like a candle in the wind” or a “Bubble on the stream.” 
Nor do three things wait for man—‘“Running rivers, 
fading flowers and passing time.” Nevertheless to the 


=) 


normal man, “‘Life is the most precious of all precious 
things,” literally ‘““The treasure of treasures.” 

“There is no place like home.”” The Japanese said it 
with these flowers of poetry—‘“It is not easy to forget 
one’s birthplace.’”’ The Kyoto lady, who married even 
a great nobleman and lived in a far province, often 
suffered “Heart pain,” or homesickness and would say 
to herself—at least, that is what the Ainu coined in 
words—“My heart sinks when I no longer see my 
loved home.’’ The same Ainu declared, in mind if not 
in words, ‘‘An exile from home, pleasure dazzles in 
vain,” saying, “At home you can be happy, but when 
you go on a journey, you enjoy four periods of misery 
to one of pleasure.” 

In fact, some home lovers mounted to the very peaks 
of extravagance in glorifying home and incidentally 
celebrating the virtue of contentment, for in Japanese 
they wrote their faith in four words, ““Where you live 
—that is the capital.” 

And lest, in the old Hermit Kingdom of Japan, some 
might boast too ostentatiously of having been “‘abroad,” 
that is “away from home’’—in Kyoto, Yedo, the north- 
ern provinces, or the islands, or even to the Place of 
the Pendant Tassels—which hung on the outer robe 
of the Empire—the Riu Kiu (Loo Choo) islands, or, 
even—almost incredible to relate—in the Yezo (un- 
civilized region where the Aryan cavemen, or the 
“Aino,” or mongrels (properly Ainu, or men), one 
could still covertly stick to their praises of home, while 
rejoicing in the pride of having traveled. 

Yes, but “There are boors, even in the capital” and 


26 


it might be that people of an idealistic frame of mind 
—even much as our Emerson did, boasted that ““The 
poet, though he does not stir abroad, sees all the beau- 
tiful places.”’ Indeed one need not be a genius to enjoy 
“Fireside travels” if he tries the magic of books and 
exercises his imagination. 

Yet times change and we, to get the most out of life, 
must change with them. ‘New measures, new men,” 
yes, and new eyes. An old proverb, long before almost 
relegated to oblivion or at least to “Harmless desue- 
tude,” suddenly arose, soon after treaty days, like 
Truth that “Lies at the bottom of the well.” From 
her hiding place, far down in the earth and out of sight, 
the reality came forth. Then the hermits rubbed their 
eyes to see that they were as Rip Van Winkle and that 
the world had moved on. Those who had been across the 
oceans, to America and Europe, pointed the finger of 
scorn or laughed the laugh of sarcasm at the stay-at- 
homes. In the old days, this ancient proverb, ‘“The frog 
in the well knows not the great ocean,” might equip the 
traveler, or the pilgrim—even if only within Japan’s 
frontiers—for a gibe at the parochially-minded; but a 
joke of this calibre was not large enough after Perry’s 
advent; for then, Japanese who had been beyond ‘““The 
great ocean” to America or Europe, came home and 
found their old neighbors incredulous as to the tales 
they told. To such folks, still stuck fast in insular or 
hereditary notions was given the name “‘Well-frogs.” 
Then another almost forgotten proverb of Chinese 
origin and with natural history, or “Science,” quite 
equal to that long current among us concerning the 


sa 


pelican, the phoenix, or the dragon, was resurrected 
into everyday speech. It was this: “Cast the lion’s cub 
into the valley,” that is to say, let the pet son travel 
abroad. 

Yet those who were ‘‘Too fresh in imitating the for- 
eigner,”’ trying to revolutionize custom in a day, or 
eulping down at once the new ideas, were nicknamed 
in proverbial fashion and the retort was often stinging. 
I found some of the street songs of 1871 made happy 
hits or hurled biting epithets that stuck like the vulgar 
spit-ball prayers thrown at the gods’ temples. These, 
with bulldog-like tenacity hold on. One must recall 
the native classification of “wet”? gods—idols out doors 
in the rain—and the “dry” ones in the temples, at 
which petitions written on paper were thrown in rolled 
and adhesive forms. 

Even in science, real or so-called, woe be to him who 
was too credulous, or who ‘““SSwallowed Darwin whole,” 
or the girl who had only ‘‘Missionary manners”! Even 
Ito was abruptly checked, in his attempt to Euro- 
peanize woman’s dress or social customs too brusquely. 
General Kuroda was bluffed in his colossal dreams for 
the inter-marriage of whole nations and in his revolu- 
tionary schemes of female education. —The Code Napo- 
léon was rejected, even after a learned Frenchman 
had labored for years to adapt it to Japanese life. 
“Water takes the shape of the vessel containing it” 
meant too much for the men of conservative instinct. 
So the command “Halt” had to be given almost as often 
as that of ‘‘Forward,” and the new electricity had to 
travel in a slower alternating current; or rather the > 


28 


flood of new influences was as the ocean tides—plenty 
of incoming billows, but also the undertow. 

Education, in all its phases and especially the method 
and philosophy of it, has ever received a notable 
amount of attention, and this fact is reflected in prov- 
erbs. The actual result of mature thinking is best known 
to those inquirers who, in studying the causes of the 
modern regeneration of Japan, have sought beneath 
the surface for the causes. The scrutiny of such ex- 
perts tends to lower the conceit of foreigners. From 
the day when mercy dictated the substitution of clay 
images for the human beings who had formerly been 
buried alive with the dead chief or master, down to 
the adoption of a national public school system, edu- 
cation has been a ruling passion. The gnomic sayings 
on this theme have multiplied like the facets ground 
upon the face of a diamond. Yet it must be confessed 
that in Old Japan culture was for the few, not for the 
many, whereas now it is open and free to all. 

The first American called to live as a guest in the 
far interior of Japan to organize schools on Western 
principles, felt it high honor to be addresed by all as 
“Sen-séi.”’ ‘This word, applied to the venerable and 
those honored because of age, or to those having pro- 
fessional skill in healing, or to the good teacher, means 
literally ‘“‘First-Born.”’ 

In Old Japan the more years, the more honor! Even 
the lady who was past youth’s first blush, concealed not 
her age. Indeed most of the fair ones of mature years 
felt rather complimented at being called ‘‘old’’—the 
word of terror in the young country of America. So 


oh 


the American educator in the far interior of Japan felt 
happy, for he discerned the honors intended and so 
pleasantly conferred. 

Let us see how the wise men of Japan conceived of 
education and culture and on what elements they set 
the most value. We shall dwell less on commonplace 
maxims for the beginners and look at the chief aim. 

While elementary training was not undervalued, one 
of the main points in the desired result was the acquire- 
ment of tact, good judgment, the sense of propriety 
and the proportion of things. For, none more than the 
Japanese gentleman saw how often even a great man 
without a sense of humor may make a fool of himself, 
as we frequently see even in ‘““The land of the free 
and the home of the brave.” “A deaf man speaks 
loudly,”’ but why hello when all can hear? Again the 
Greek idea of “Not too much!” 

There is delicacy in the way we do things. Tact 
“Gives wings to dexterity.”’ How pretty the picture- 
proverbs—‘“‘The feet of a heron standing in the water, 
rising to fly, roil not the stream,” and “The branches 
of the willow break not from the snow.” ‘Read in 
the classics, but not knowing them”’ not only notes the 
difference between erudition and culture—hasty read- 
ing without reflection—but points at the wight who is 
well bred but not practical, or who may know but can- 
not communicate, or the teacher who can hear recita- 
tions but not inspire. Such a one, omnivorous in read- 
ing but too poor in mental digestion, ‘Swallows black 
pepper whole,” or gulps down a five-dollar tea infu- 
sion, when he ought to taste every drop. 


30 


Especially in the use of the tongue are restraint, ef- 
fectiveness and charm inculcated. “Better avoid criti- 
cism than win praise.” Many are the witty flings at 
ways and things infelicitous. “The unskillful speaker 
is long-winded,” and ““The more words, the less sense” ; 
while in contrast, the eloquent priest and story-teller 
“Turn men’s ears into eyes” and can “Pick men’s pock- 
ets with their tongues.” Under the winsome orator or 
convincing speaker, one may, like our alluring adver- 
tisement-writers, make one “Hear one thing and under- 
stand ten’’; or, in reverse, we may “Hear Paradise and 
see Hades.” 

Patience in study rewards the student, even as mod- 
eration in eating, and deliberation in sipping old wine 
the epicure. The student of the classics brings ample 
returns on his investment of time and brains; for ‘‘Seek 
for the old and you discover the new.” The more we 
read in the literature of power, the more we enjoy its 
freshness, for we ourselves grow to the measure of its 
height. It may even be that ‘“‘You seek only a grass 
stalk and get a fine needle,” and in the verse and preg- 
nant language of the classics ““What is not said excels 
what is spoken.” Yet outside this charmed circle, very 
far below the peaks of human attainment in thought 
and expression—in the literature of knowledge and 
amusement—‘‘The more words the less sense.”’ ‘‘Proof 
is better than argument.” 

The tongue of the wise has power and “One single 
great man can still a crowd,” and ‘The silent may be 
worth listening to.””’ Von Moltke was ‘“‘Silent in six 
languages,” but his strategy was superb. 


31 


Men may weary of mere talk, which may dribble on 
until “A crow’s head becomes white” or “The white 
heron becomes black.” Witness some midnight pro- 
longations of stupid after-dinner speakers who, “While 
their tongues wag, their brains sleep.”’ There are times 
when “Silence is better than speech.”’ 

The wise man scorns not the lowly, for “Something 
may be learned even from a grass cutter’—the poor 
fellow that seeks scanty fuel in the distant hills, and 
“Even a dunce may have one specialty.” On the other 
hand, the great man has foibles. “Even Kobo (eighth 
century paragon of intellect and learning) made slips 
of the pen.” ‘The Master’s favorite red cap” reveals 
eccentricities and shows that the elephant, as well as 
the puppy, must be humored. Yet the learned will not 
waste time or words on the ignorant or the uninter- 
ested. This would be “Like giving a koban (gold 
piece) to a cat,”’ or “Pouring water in a frog’s face.” 
They care nothing. Nor will wise men wilt under gossip, 
for “The world’s talk is only for seventy days’—a 
period somewhat longer than our “Nine days’ wonder.” 

As to the value of education, there were, or are now, 
no two opinions. ‘One day at school is worth a thou- 
sand réyo (dollars),’’ for “Learning is like a wagon go- 
ing up hill’”—one must keep on, or the pupils will lose 
what they acquired. The recipe for learning a lan- 
guage, or mastering an art, may be written in “Jferum 
tterumque’’ (again and again), for “‘Practice makes per- 
fect”? and ‘‘Habit is second nature’”’—both for bane and 
for blessing, for “After three years, evil becomes a neces- 
sity’ —“We first endure, then pity, then embrace.” 


32 


For the obverse of the question of excess of familiar- 
ity and repetition, we have much wit and humor, be- 
cause the Japanese (like other folks) are very Athenian 
in their desire ‘““To hear or to tell some new thing.” 
“Even the crows laugh at a tale three years old.” Old 
jokes, ‘‘Chestnuts,”’ “Tales to the Marines” fail to ex- 
cite zest in those who have often heard them. “Ho- 
toké mo, sando” (three looks at a dead saint’s face is 
enough.) This is a short proverb that tells a long story. 
The most appealing tunes lose their sweet music if 
heard too often, and the continual sound of the praises 
of Alcibiades as a just man may weary and disgust even 
a cobbler. In religion “By being overmuch righteous, 
we become bigoted,” “Extremes in orthodoxy produce 
error’ and “Excess of politeness may become rude- 
ness.’ Moderation in all things is a trait noticeable 
in the Japanese superior man from the dawn of history, 
and this, despite fads, fashions, love of change, appe- 
tite for new dishes and ideas. Yet under the stress of 
necessity, the power to change even on a national scale 
is not impossible to the Japanese. 

Reflecting daily traffic, whether in the market place, 
or over the counter, “On change,” or in life among 
the lowly—in whose conversation, even to those who 
do not understand the vernacular, are overheard the 
words, as in a song with a refrain, “Roppiaku hop- 
piaku’’ (six hundred, eight hundred, etc., cash )—are 
proverbs, as many as coins on a full string of the old 
(perforated) cash. 

In old feudal days, one needed a strong bag to hold 
the bulky and heavy iron and brass zen2, or even a horse 


33 


for a long journey. Of course, there were silver coins 
—the square 7chi-bu, and the gold koban ($5), and 
oban ($40), but these were for hoarding and accumu- 
lation, rather than circulation. For if one took paper 
money, he must change the dirty stuff, literally “filthy 
lucre,”’ at each frontier and barrier gate of the nearly 
300 han or feudal fractions of the empire. In travel- 
ing in the interior in 1871 I often changed the ‘Shin 
plasters’ as many as five times in one day. 

Yet wits were sharpened and rascality was suffi- 
ciently abundant, so that caution was necessary and 
experience plentiful. There were stingy and generous 
folk. Men ‘‘Made their pile,” or, in Japanese, ‘‘Raised 
a mountain,” by industry, shrewdness, or frugality. 
‘‘The cheap buyer loses his cash”—better pay well for 
a good thing. A bad venture—‘“‘A hundred days’ work 
—one breath of wind,” or only a promise to pay. 

The emotions of borrowers and lenders are pictured 
in the proverbs, ‘““He borrows with the face of a saint, 
but pays with the visage of a demon.”’ One rather old 
saw means ‘“‘Pay your fiddler.” 

Not all shopkeepers were scoundrels—as the samu- 
rai, non-tax-paying, sword-wearers might, yes, were 
wont to believe. ‘Honest business produces wealth” 
—or is “The best policy.”’ The virtues of thrift and 
industry were preached—‘‘The wise man can hold his 
money.” “Poverty cannot overtake industry.” ‘The 
tree of industry bears golden fruit.’ Yet miserliness, 
an excess of economy, is not to be praised, as when a 
man “‘Rakes in dung to pick up a copper.” 

“Poverty leads to theft.” ‘Want begets robbery’’; 


34 


or, less blameworthy from lack of learning, A native 
wit, “Poverty is the result of stupidity.” 

Our “Don’t do business with your relatives” is in 
Japan “Lend money to a friend and he is a friend no 
more.’ Another native proverb is the equivalent of 
ours, “Short settlements make long friendships.” 

The “deceitfulness of riches” and the evil fruit, not 
of money but of inordinate money-love is thus pic- 
tured: ‘The rich man becomes more avaricious, even 
as the spittoon becomes more foul.” In this sentence 
also may be read many a biography—‘‘When life is 
thrown away for pelf, the ruined life cares naught for 
the money,” that is “Nature takes out of the man what 
she puts into the chest,” as Emerson says. To hie to 
the metropolis, without experience but perhaps to gain 
more of this commodity than is wanted, is to be like 
moths lured to the flame. “There is no day in Yedo 
when a bell cannot be sold.” Yet a brave man will 
dare, for, “If you do not enter the tiger’s den you will 
net get her cub.” “Nothing venture, nothing have.” 

Closeness of observation of the animal world is re- 
vealed in the popular sayings, and especially in those 
concerning the home creatures may accuracy be noted; 
but as regards the tiger—unknown in Nippon—the 
references are like those to the dragons and other phan- 
tasies, which exist only in the rich mythical zoology of 
Japan. The fox and monkey are the favorite targets of 
wit and the apothegms concerning the latter, pro and 
con, would satisfy both Mr. Darwin and Mr. Bryan— 
‘“‘“A monkey lacks only three hairs of being human.” 
No wonder that an ape is so like a man, for it “Tries 


35 


to seize the moon in the water.” The bestowal of 
honors upon a fool or an ignoramus in high office, is 
like “Putting a hat (noble’s cap) on a monkey.” Fool- 
ish learning or fatuous enterprise is “Monkey wis- 
dom.’”’ A man must not take himself too seriously or 
unduly magnify his own importance. He should be 
as modest as ““The crab (which) digs a hole the size 
of its own back.’”’ In tine, most of us find our level. 

Cunning may be added to strength, as when a giant 
has brains equaling his brawn. Then “The fox has 
borrowed the tiger’s power,”’ or it is like “Giving wings 
to a tiger.” Here we have a Korean reference to the 
mountain god. One of the banners thus pictures with 
a statant winged tiger—the patron deity of the brave 
hunters, who in 1871 faced American rifles and how- 
itzers—was captured by our forces under Schley and 
Rodgers. Our “Birds of a feather” becomes ‘‘Foxes 
from the same hole.” 

The varied peculiarities of Japan’s domestic animals 
are read in the popular proverbial verdicts. 

The cats, when first introduced from China and 
Korea, were for centuries looked upon as wild animals, 
as certain extant medieval edicts show. Not even yet 
have centuries of domestication wholly redeemed their 
ancient and sinister reputation. Contrast is usually 
made with the dogs, even though, until 1871, when the 
town dogs were taxed and put under license, canine 
creatures were wild, ownerless and hunted in packs. 
As a rule, only the pug-nosed chin—“King Charles 
spaniel’’—was a household pet. The ill-trusted gé2-sha 
are called “‘cats’—a reference less malevolent than 


36 


would appear on the surface, since it refers rather to 
the catskin, which covers their samdzsen (three-stringed 
banjo), the girls being nearly all musicians and expert 
with this instrument. Distinctly bad is feline reputa- 
tion, in this exaggeration—‘“‘Feed a cat three years and 
after three days’ absence, it will not know you.” “Feed 
a dog three days, and it will be grateful for three 
years.”’ Moreover, the Japanese bob-tailed Puss is 
lazy and only when unfed or hungry, hunts its prey; 
but then, “The rat-catching cat hides its claws.” 

One might conjecture, in advance, that the Japa- 
nese, being a nation of fishermen—getting at least a 
third of their daily food out of water, salt or fresh— 
many even of their myths, legends and fairy tales be- 
ing marine in their location, and evidently from their 
Polynesian strain of ancestry, there would be many 
wise or witty popular sayings about fish, with the talk, 
also, about the chances of landing them, with fun at 
the human element in the case. To begin with “Don’t 
fish on trees” and remember ‘‘There are no fish in clear 
water’—the net being spread in vain in the sight of 
any bird—or fish. With art, the little with the great, 
one can “Catch a fai (golden red bream) with a rice 
grain,” which is the verbal equivalent of our “‘A sprat 
for a mackerel.’’ Of course, in Japan, as elsewhere in 
the world, ‘‘fish stories’ abound and in them, usually 
in excited memory, if not in overt reality, ‘“The lost eel 
is large.” 

Falconry, one of the sports, which were many in Old 
Japan and borrowed from China, even as Europe pur- 
loined so liberally from Asia, is rather ancient in this 


37 


youthful land, which is, both historically and geologi- 
cally, very young—as the numerous and awful earth- 
quakes prove. The skilled know that “A clever falcon 
hides its claws’ (and so does the man who is like this 
bird of prey) and “It crouches that it may swoop” (as 
does the flattering scoundrel), but once gripped with 
talon or claw, it holds on and not infrequently “The 
plucky falcon has its leg broken.” 

While textbooks and the script used in school were 
recognized as necessities, the greater dependence was 
placed on the living teacher and the power of example. 
In the feudal framework of society and government, 
etiquette and propriety, as taught to children in the 
Land of Fine Manners, scarcely needed to be written. 
We do not say that these elements of behavior consti- 
tuted the religion of the Japanese; but it is certain that 
in the minority of the privileged classes, who ruled the 
majority, that is, the masses, conformity to custom 
and tradition were accounted as the equivalent, or even 
as having more potency than religion. To innovate, to 
believe in progress and take the necessary steps to se- 
cure the same, meant social or political heresy, with the 
penalty of exile, imprisonment or death. To believe 
in freedom of conscience was then ‘‘To hold evil opin- 
ions.” For this Yokoi Heishiro, one of Japan’s noblest 
martyrs for truth, who sent the first students to Amer- 
ica, was in 1869 assassinated. Long is the list of the 
posthumously honored or with tombs built to increase 
the fame, of Japan’s “Morning Stars of the Reforma- 
tion” of 1868, and of the martyrs whose blood was the 
seed of the nation’s new life. In a word, exactly as in 


38 


the case of Europe, Japan leaped as if by a bound from 
cast-iron conservatism to the great possibilities of 
progress as of tempered steel, which bends without 
breaking. Well named was the time-era of Mezjz 
(Enlightened Progress). Nobler yet is that of Tazsho 
(Great Righteousness). May the reality measure up 
to the symbol and the future to the name! 


39 


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